THE fruits of age, less fair, are yet more sound
Than those a brighter season pours around;
And, like the stores autumnal suns mature,
Through wintry rigours unimpaired endure.
BUT were death frightful, what has age to fear?
If prudent, age should meet the friendly foe,
And shelter in his hospitable gloom.
WEARINESS will follow those
Who touch upon their journey's close
But as the sun, though setting, burns
Still brightly, and to glory turns
The very clouds that round him roll;
So, even so, do thou my soul,
With in-born radiance, more and more,
Illume the shades of Sixty-four.
Nay, let a yet diviner power
Glorify thy latter hour:
Too long faithless and forlorn
Earthly image thou hast borne;
Now that heavenly impress seek,
Which, when flesh is frail and weak,
Gives the soul new power to soar
Eagle-winged, at Sixty-four.
AGE, by long experience well informed,
Well read, well tempered, with religion warmed,
That fire abated, which impels rash youth,
Proud of his speed, to overshoot the truth,
As time improves the grape's authentic juice,
Mellows and makes the speech more fit for use,
And claims a reverence, in his shortening day,
That tis an honour and a joy to pay.
COWPER.
HE passeth calmly from that sunny morn,
Where all the buds of youth are newly born,
Through varying intervals of onward years,
Until the eve of his decline appears;
And while the shadows round his path descend,
And down the vale of age his footsteps tend,
Peace o'er his bosom sheds her soft control,
And throngs of gentlest memories charm the soul;
Then, weaned from earth, he turns his steadfast eye
Beyond the grave, whose verge he falters nigh,
Surveys the brightening regions of the blest,
And, like a wearied pilgrim, sinks to rest.
O MY coevals! remnants of yourselves!
Poor human ruins, tottering o'er the grave!
Shall we, shall aged men, like aged trees,
Strike deeper their vile root, and closer cling,
Still more enamoured of this wretched soil ?
Shall our pale, withered hands be still stretched out
Trembling, at once, with eagerness and age?
With avarice and convulsions griping hard?
Grasping at air! For what has earth beside ?
Man wants but little, nor that little long:
How soon must he resign his very dust,
Which frugal nature lent him for an hour!
AGE should fly concourse, cover in retreat
Defects of judgment, and the will subdue;
Walk thoughtful on the silent solemn shore
Of that vast ocean it must sail so soon;
And put good works on board; and wait the wind
That shortly blows us into worlds unknown.
SHE in her Saviour's ranks had dore
A veteran's service, and with Polycarp
Might say to Death, "For more than fourscore years
He was my Lord-shall I deny him now?"
No! no! Thou could'st not turn away from Him
Who was thy hope from youth, and on whose arm
The feebleness of holy hoary hairs was staid.
Before His Father, and the Angel host,
He will adjudge thee faithful. So farewell,
Blessed and full of days!
Ir is not growing like a tree
In bulk doth make man better be;
Or standing long, an oak three hundred year,
To fall a log at last, dry, bald, and sere;
A lily of a day
Is fairer far in May;
Although it fall and die that night,
It was the plant and flower of light.
In small proportions we just beauties see,
And in short measures life may perfect be.
For men to search their own glory is not glory. PROVERBS, xxv, 27.
A high look, and a proud heart, and the ploughing of the wicked is sin. PROVERBS, xxi, 4.
Whosoever will be chief among you, let him be your servant. MATTHEW, XX, 27. Though thou exalt thyself as the eagle, and though thou set thy nest among the tars, thence will I bring thee down, saith the Lord. OBADIAH, 4.
Woe unto you, Pharisees, for ye love the uppermost seats in the synagogues, and greetings in the markets. LUKE, Xi, 43.
They loved the praise of men, more than the praise of God. JOHN, xii, 43.
Who, vexed with vain disquietude, pursue
Ambition's fatuous light through miry pools.
That yawn for their destruction, stray, foredoomed,
Amid delusive shadows to their end.
AMBITION, when the pinnacle is gained
With many a toilsome step, the power it sought
Wants to support itself, and sighs to find
The envied height but aggravates the fall.
GIVE me the mind that, bent on highest aim,
Deems virtue's rugged path sole path to fame;
Great things with small compare, in scale sublime,
And life with death, eternity with time.
O MOMENTARY grace of mortal men!
Which we more hunt for than the grace of God,
Who builds his hope in air of your fair looks,
Lives like a drunken sailor on a mast,
Ready with every nod to tumble down.
I CHARGE thee, fling away ambition; By that sin fell the angels: how can man then, The image of his Maker, hope to win by 't?
Love thyself last, cherish those hearts that hate thec, Corruption wins not more than honesty.
Still in thy right hand carry gentle peace,
To silence envious tongues. Be just and fear not,
Let all the ends thou aim'st at, be thy country's,
Thy God's, and truth's.
To float upon the memory of men
After his term of being, oft becomes
A master passion, and for that one aim,
He barters all that his Creator gave
Of joy or solace in the vale of life,
And that inheritance of perfect bliss
Which might be his forever.
TWICE told the period spent on stubborn Troy,
Court favor, yet untaken, I besiege;
Ambition's ill judged efforts to be rich.
Alas! Ambition makes my little, less;
Embittering the possessed: why wish for more?
Wishing, of all employments, is the worst.
Won to thee, wild Ambition! I employ
Despair's low notes thy dread effects to tell; Born in high heaven, her peace thou could'st destroy And but for thee, there had not been a hell.
Through the celestial domes thy clarion pealed;
Angels, entranced, beneath thy banners ranged,
And straight were fiends; hurled from the shrinking field,
They waked in agony to wail the change.
|